Helpful Tips...I hope!

In June, my mom and a friend went to a conference on Wellness and the speaker there, who I would love to meet one day, was Deborah Enos, CN The One-Minute Wellness Coach. She has written a book called Weight a minute! Transform your health in 60 seconds a day! I recommend reading it. Mine is highlighted and underlined throughout it and those are the tips I'd like to share with you! On Amazon, the paperback goes for $10.49 and the Kindle Edition is $6.99! 
(The blue text is me talking!)

This is the first part of the book. 

• Always eat a high-energy breakfast. This meal should be large enough to keep you full for a least three hours. Include protein here to keep you fuller and more alert through the morning.
• Always eat lunch! Skipping it will set you up to be starving all afternoon, which will make you give into your sugar cravings, which will cause the afternoon doldrums to hit, which will make you want to take a nap.

• Make dinner the smallest meal of the day. If you eat a substantial mid-afternoon snack you won't be as hungry at dinner. 

I have done this since the first of July. That was my starting day of my getting healthy! :) I knew I'd struggle with this because there were times I was too busy in the morning to eat or I would just forget. Or I'd eat a bowl of cereal or two and then forget about lunch and realize I'm starving at dinner. And yet my dinner would never be seconds and because I don't allow my food to touch on my plate, I never had huge servings. After starting this, I quickly learned why I'm so overweight. When you starve yourself, the fat in your body says, "Let's stick around cause we can!" So let's eat and move and that fat will have no choice but to leave! 

From the book: Increase your food, decrease your waistline

What:
   You're eating a lot less and still can't lose weight. You are beginning to wonder how you can possibly cut back more. This approach is ineffective. The more you reduce your calories, the more you turn down your metabolism. The lower your metabolism, the less fat and calories you burn.

Why:
   Here's how it works: The body gets used to functioning on a certain number of calories daily, let's say 1,500. If you reduce that number by a small amount, say 300, you will lose some weight. But if you continue to lower your caloric intake (instead of increasing exercise) your body will go into starvation mode and try to protect itself by burning very little fat and slowing down your metabolic rate. Your body, especially a woman's body, likes to have extra fat, just in case there is a famine around the corner. 

• Cut back on a small amount of calories while increasing your exercise. The exercise will add muscle to your body and more muscle will increase your metabolism so that you will be a fat-burning machine all day long. You will burn more calories while you sleep, eat, work and play.
• Eat all day. Spreading your calories throughout the day prompts your body to burn more calories. Every time you eat, you raise your body temperature, which is, in essence, your metabolism. People who eat five to six times per day burn more calories and lose more weight then people who eat only one or two meals a day. 

• Eat the majority of your calories during the day, when you need the most energy. If your biggest meal of the day is right before bed, your body has no opportunity to burn off those calories through activity. 
• Eat within a half-hour of getting up. Your metabolism sleeps while you sleep. It needs a little food to wake it up in the morning. As soon as you eat, it reports to work and starts burning fat and calories. It doesn't take a huge breakfast to turn on your metabolism. If you're not hungry in the morning, start your day with a hundred-calorie snack--a piece of fruit or a glass of milk. 

This is the last tip I'll give you for this post. I REALLY recommend getting this book! It's not a big book, only 141 pages with information on them. 

From the book: Are you a fat-burning machine or a fat-making machine?

What:
   The world is divided into two types of people, those who can eat anything they want and still maintain their weight, and those who look at a piece of cake and gain weight. The former burn up calories and fat as fast as they eat them and the latter store those calories as fat for the winter, 12 months a year. 

Why:
   Some people are born with a high metabolism, but it is possible to rev up slow metabolism and turn your body into a fat-burning machine. 

How:
   There are two keys to turning your body into a fat-burning machine:

1. Add more muscle to your body. One pound of muscle burns approximately 80 calories a day. One pound of fat burns only two calories a day. Choose exercises that will add muscle to your frame and increase your daily calorie burn. 
2. Burn calories, don't cut them. People who have lost weight and kept it off know the importance of staying active. In fact, a recent study on fidgeting shows that multiple movements throughout the day can play a tremendous role in weight loss and weight-loss maintenance (Levine and Eberhardt 1999). Many people in the study moved enough to burn an extra 850 calories a day, the equivalent of an 8.5 mile walk! 

Here are a few ways to add muscle to your body and increase calories burned:

• Take the stairs. An extra 10 minutes of stair climbing a day will burn 12 pounds of fat a year.
• Do standing push-ups against your kitchen or bathroom counter.
• Do lunges or squats while on the phone or watching TV.
• Work in the garden.
• Actively play (lifting and moving) with kids.
• Walk more. An extra 10 minutes of walking each day will burn almost 5 pounds of fat a year. It really does pay to park your car in the farthest space from the store. 
• Link your house chores into one long cardio segment. Start your day by raking leaves, then wash the car and walk the dog. These activities could add up to an hour or more of fat burning.
• Throw away your remote control and actually walk over to the TV to change the channel. 
• Just move. Any activity is better than no activity. 

We all have those friends who can eat anything and stay thin huh? And you just wanna punch em in the arm! But sometimes, it's okay to fight for what you want. In the end, you have only one person to be proud of and that's you! 

This morning I got up and the back of my right knee was like in a cramp or something. I thought it might keep me from the gym, but then I really did wake up and didn't let that happen! I had a semi big breakfast and I learned my lesson on that, especially if I'm working out at the gym in the morning, which I like best. For breakfast I had oatmeal, a banana, a small glass of milk, two pieces of toast with peanut butter and a hard boiled egg. Something I learned today, the yoke of an egg is 13 grams of fat. I doubt that will stop me from eating them, but who knows! Changes are happening! 

So after I ate, I got ready for the gym. I got there around 10 and I walked in, hung my keys up and headed upstairs. I'm starting very slowly on the Elliptical and today I did 3.5 minutes. I'm trying to up it each day. I take small breaks, but it stops counting my time so when I go back to it, it takes off where I stopped. When I was done with that, I went downstairs and looked for the machine I start with. I finally found it and got started with my routine. Busted out the weight and went up on a few. I do a LOT of arm machines so by the time I get to my legs, I'm happy! When I got to the leg press, I asked my trainer how much weight we used before and I asked if we could put more on. Before he added 50 lbs. So I lifted 115 lbs. Just doing the machine w/o any added weight is 65 lbs. Today though, Monday, he first put on 70 lbs extra...135 lbs total. That wasn't tough at all. He took those off and added 90 lbs...making the full weight 155 lbs. That was it! When he was done adding the 90 lbs, I asked him how much weight that is total and when he said 155, I just about screamed for joy! I did a complete set with 155 lbs! That is my limit as of this time. After that, I went and sat on the stairs before I headed upstairs for my cool down. I knew I had to or my legs wouldn't have made it up! They were worn down from the leg presses. I waited about a minute or so and then I dragged myself up the stairs! Only three flights...UGH! I made it up there and wanted to find a seat, but the only one I knew I needed was the bike. Ha ha! I got there and rode a 2 miles bike ride for my cool down. I walked out of the gym at 11:30.

I came home and had a small lunch and then talked with Terry! That always makes my day 100% better! :) I watched some TV and around 5, I started cooking the chicken breast for my salad. Ate that for dinner and then got ready to go swimming. It was raining outside and I love swimming in the rain so I drove to the pool and swam for an hour! Came home, took a shower and started writing this! It's a rather long one, but I wanted to give you some tips that maybe you can take and use as you begin your new journey if you're choosing to start one. 

I hope you had a great first day to your week! Here's onto the next one! Remember to share a smile...you never know whose life you may bring sunshine to. :)